Just picked it up. I stopped keeping up with the column online once it became clear that it was meant to be read in a collected form. Very cool, reminded me of Ken Hollings' WELCOME TO MARS podcast series. Will there be any push to put this into regular bookstores? A lot of this seems like it would appeal to people who aren't into comics.

Quick question, regardless of the answer I still plan on picking this up tomorrow though. But I followed these columns as you posted them and printed them off into a three-ring binder for my own DIY copy of Do Anything. So does the collected edition add anything to the columns? Of course, anything extra other than a rockin' robot Jack Kirby head and a slightly altered running order.

I've been re-reading Shivering Sands on the train every morning. Not a very long commute, so I get to read like one of the 5-6 page chunks each way. Do Anything is now in my bag too, incase I finish Shivering Sands without realizing I hit the end. I was curious about what Do Anything would look like bound. I was imagining a normal book shape, around ~30 pages or so, that would fit well on the non-comic bookshelf. Was happy to see the comic format instead. Looks nice. Can't wait to dip into it. I only read the first 6 or so online, hoping to sit down and read it all the way through one day.

i picked up the book completely ignorant of the original columns. in short: i enjoyed the HELL out of it. thought provoking, enjoyable, and informative ( i just checked out the Alex Toth critique. MY GOD) it stands as great writing about creative legacy and the creative process. i hope you write a million more, i would buy every one. i also loved the look/layout of the book. great work from everyone involved!

Picked it up, haven't read it yet. I read practically the whole thing in a sitting at work over an exceptionally slow two-day period (holiday weekends are great for that) and loved it. It's next on my list after my current book, though, and will have a nice spot of honor on my bookshelf. And probably lent out a bit, too.

-edit- And I'd love an annotated version. Admitted, it would boost the page count from 48 to 300, easy, and would require a music CD to go with it, but it'd be worth it.

Got it today, about 16 pages in. I read some of the early columns online, but I kinda think it reads better like this--all in one book, being able to read them together instead of waiting a week, more of what you're saying connects to the brain. I'll admit that there are quite a few people and things I never heard of, probably because I've focused mostly on American comics, but it's definitely giving me a good excuse/starting point to better broaden my scope.

I apologize for the length. First time writer, long time blah blah blah.If anything comes off as rude, I apologize and want to say I don’t mean it as such. I think I’m hypersensitive about offending someone after reading about the Toth critique.

I was a bit surprised by your portrayal of Stan Lee. Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey really tore into him in the fourth issue of Comic Book Comics and I was kind of expecting a similar treatment since you have Kirby’s head front and center. Maybe it’s just because I didn’t see an artist draw Kirby’s angry face. Had Jacen Burrows drawn Jack Kirby yelling at the top of his lungs, I might have gotten the same impression.You make the early Marvel method of writing comics seem much more appropriate, while CBC gave the impression that only the collaborators (namely Ditko and Kirby) actually knew how to tell stories.I was surprised with CBC because I would have figured Van Lente, having worked so much for Marvel and now being a “Marvel exclusive,” would be much more reticent to criticize Lee.

I also feel kind of weird that I didn’t take the time to sit down and read these online, but I gladly picked it up for $6. I guess it is true what they say about eye strain with computer screens. Also, I could read the book version and put it on my nightstand before I went to bed, whereas lugging my laptop through the house would have been less practical.I’ve recently been getting a friend into comics. I lent him Nightly News, Pax Romana and some stuff like Civil War and Ultimates to give him an idea of how Marvel functions. He, like I, enjoyed Pax Romana the most. This collection of essays would also be a cool thing to lend to help him get a better idea of comics in general.And while I’m mentioning Pax Romana, does anyone know about anything else in a similar vein? I’ve got almost all of Hickman’s other stuff, and SHIELD is the closest to it. The Kipling issue of the Unwritten is very different but was intellectually stimulating in a similar way. I picked up Joe Casey’s Wildcats 3.0 last week and haven’t gotten to them quite yet. I guess I’m looking for a mix of politics (with focuses on empires, economics, and history) and sci-fi.

Personally, I really enjoyed the essays and was glad to have them in a more portable form. I’d really love to see this as a series but a bunch of different writers. Any chance for any collaborations with other authors? Something like what Brubaker does with Criminal and have a bunch of guests come in and write essays? I mentioned a love for Hickman above, and I’ve seen him do some Concentric Circles columns on iFanboy. He has cool notes in the back of Nightly News, but I’d love to see him do a book of essays.Of course, don’t take this to mean that I don’t want to see more from you. I might not have read them online because they were all done and didn’t take the time just to sit down and read them. Are you still doing a weekly column? I’d read them if it were a weekly item in my RSS feeder.And this is not a complaint, but some of those asides/digressions were insanely long. Namely #9. I actually laughed when I had to go back and find where the digression started.

Finished it on my bus-ride home today--amazing stuff. Not only did it make me want to research more and broaden my horizons, but it got me in the mood to write/draw some comics, which I'm sure that was at least part of what you were going for with these.

I read about 8 sections/columns last night before falling asleep. It caused me to dream about meeting Kirby in a classroom, and he talked about his favorite Warren Ellis comic being the one with "The horse with the "S" on his rear." I had recently bought that comic in the dream, but woke up before I could read it. Do Anything plants ads for Warren's comics in your dreams. Beware.

Okay, now that I've read it (for the second time, if you include the web version), I can honestly say that I like it. A lot. The benefit it has in print is that it flows much better, and the connections... connect... better, when there's only a page or two and a few seconds between them, instead of a whole week. I'd often find myself having a tough time connecting threads with the web version, but it's easy as pie to flip back a bit to pick up the last reference. So for the theme, print serves the work a bit better, I think.

I mean, I realize that the web is just a bunch of connections, but within a single work it's a lot easier for me to navigate. For some reason. Maybe it's because it forces me to focus. I don't know.

The quality of the book itself is okay. I like the graphic design, but the book itself seems a bit on the thin side compared to, say, your novellas. I always felt like it was going to fall apart or I was going to break the spine and pages would start falling out. But really, that's my only complaint.

Still looking forward to Do Anything 2: Possibly One of the Things Mentioned in Do Anything 1, but More Likely Something Completely Different.